Quinlan's Training Restaurant
After hearing a lot of buzz about Quinlan's training restaurant, Alex contacted Cecilia who studied there about the restaurant. After her discussion with Cecilia, she decided to get some foodies together to try it out. Over the years, Quinlan's has received a lot of awards:
Savour Australia R&C HOSTPLUS Award for Excellence (Winner: Restaurant in a Training Institute) - 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011
WA Tourism Awards (Winner: Education and Training category) - 2012, 2011, 2010
WA Tourism Hall of Fame - 2012
Sir David Brand Award for Tourism - 2012
Gold Plate Award (Winner: Best Restaurant Within a Training Establishment) - 2016, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2007, 2004
Gold Plate Award Prix d'Honneur - 2013
WA Training Awards - Multiple WA Apprentice of the Year finalists
WorldSkills state and national competitions - multiple gold, silver and bronze medal winners
We arrived earlier than the dinner time so we had some time to kill by walking around TAFE. Fortunately Cecilia was there too so she gave us a quick tour around her building. I learnt that Cecilia only learnt to bake recently and she instantly fell in love with it. If you follow her instagram account, you can see the improvement that she has made with her exceptional passion and skill in baking!
Our dinner that night was good, some dishes were outstanding but some others could be improved further. The pork belly, for example, was really salty and the steak could have been cooked better. On the other hand, the service, side dishes, entree, desserts and free house-made bread were really outstanding. Even the house-made butter that they provided was really creamy, soft, well presented and delicious.
Amazing Chocolate Sculpture
There was an amazing chocolate sculpture at Quinlan's that was created by David from La Gourmandise Perth. Of course we only admired it even though we were so tempted to take one piece of chocolate from the sculpture.
Since the restaurant is quite well-known it is important to place your booking in advance. During our dinner, the restaurant was full with customers and families of the student. Quinlan's has a good range of cocktails and wine with a really good price compared to other restaurants. Credit cards and EFTPOS facilities are available at the restaurant.
The Quinlan's Training Restaurant is definitely worth a try if you want to experience an enjoyable 3 course dinner on a budget ;-). From memory, we paid under $30 for the 3 course meal. Just remember that all dishes will be cooked by students so be ready to prepare some constructive criticism when they come around and ask about your dish.